The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-01-09

have light in them that does not belong to |
earth, and your smile is only the expression of |
an inner beauty"
"Hush, hush!" she said. "You never used to |
speak to me So"
sAnd perhaps never shall again. seem
never to have seen or thought of it before. But |
1t is not for your beauty that love you. 1t |
would be all the same with me if YOU were |
Scared and marred. But / must speak now;
this once l must lay my soul bare and let you |
know how precious You are to me- I must look |
at it myself. I never knew it till this year
began. Singular phenomenon-this love-it is !
a burden, it is dolor, but oh, what unspeakable
delicious dolor!'
And the maiden to whom this fervid love was
rendered slept upon the clouds by night, and
seemed to walk track Of sun beams into heaven
itself by day. All things shared her happiness,
the people in the house and on the street. the
postman or the tramp; 1t was never cloudy
weather when she flung that smile across their
way 1t seemed good to stald old folks whose
Aunt Bette, to such irradiating bliss in the
world; and it was good for all who crossed her
path; she wanted them to be glad of her glad
ness, and she pitied them much to think they
could not have that gladness for their own that
she could not do enough for them.
The lovers would probably have been married
at once, had not the death of Helens uncle,
with whom she had always lived, and the dis
covery of his insolvenr estate, leaving her the
three aunts with no one but herself on whom to
made arrangements at once to take the scholars
left after Signor Giuseppe's departure, and she
PLAYED the organ for an early church, and re-
ceived salary for singing in the choir of later
one. And she stipulated before she married to
be allowed to continue this course. But what
sweetness that years engagement added to her
life! When she was used to remember it after
ward, it seemed only like one long, bright sum-
mers day.
Yet sweet as that was, the married life was
sweeter. Leonard prospered in his profession;
and the goodness of two or three grateful pa
tients, who died at last, gave him the means to
buy Cragsnest, a small estate upon the mount
ain side which they had long coveted. 1t was
a trife too far away from the town for physi-
clans convenience, but he had his Office hours
in town, and had succeeded so well that he could
afford indifference to the accessibility of his
house. What pleasure they had in identifying
the place! Every rose they planted they planted
together. "Their blossoms will seem to be your
BREATH" he said
Over all lowered the dark forest of pines II
will never have one of them cut down" he said.
1--WE have sat beneath them much that they
have fed and grown great our happiness
something of you has gone into them, Helena.
When we apart always fee. you there as
see the stars shining through them. There shall
be no change here so long as you are the pole
star of my being"
But the earth swings to new pole-stars." she
said. mschievously, and then repentng the mis-
chief.
They had the satisfaction of children in ar
ranging the interior of the house. also; this room
looked out npon purple mountain view; it
should be fitted in old gold plush and the tiles
around the fire place should be done in deepest
crimson jacquemnot roses. This room opened
the rushing brook and it's still. deep pool, like
bit of fallen sky; It's colors, lighted with crys-
tails. should be the cool blues chat doubted if
they were not greens. like Eneiads
Splendid silk of foreign looms
Where ike shealing sea the lovsly blue
Played into green.
This room. leading into the study, should be
full of flowers and gay with summer chintz; aud
the library should have the velvet messy shad-
ows Of sunit woods. The aunts were coming
to live with them, the aunts whom Leonard
loved as much she did, and Helena ciasped
her hands in joy hundred times day to think
what home it was, and how perfect the days
would be in it. They hung the pictures to-
gether--chiefv Leonard's water colors-lifting
and lowering them and each other, and they
up their books and arranged the details of their
housekeeping plans, all ing Leonard's
spare moments; and there was not,
speaking loosely, particle tof dust in
the house that had not connected with it
some association, some romance, facts of
their lives, for both of them. The day that they
moved in was almost as much to Helena the
day when crying and laughing together. her
face like and rainbows and April showers
she kissed her aunts and went away having be-
come in law that part of Leonard which she had
always been in fact. ITO walk to the end of the
world together" he said
She sat the doorstep one night, years after
ward, looking down the blue mist of the gorge
that a long beam was just lighting with its dusty
gold, and life seemed to her to stretch away liHs
an endless path among the Islands of the Blest
What union was hers and Leonard's. she
| unused They read the same books together aud
re-read the old ones; they almost thought the
same thoughts together; they grew more
| alike each day; they had dropped the
old ouarrels about matters remote the
puritans, possibly for new ones but
where they differed the difference only frightened
their lives with gayety. Yet they mad their
| troubles together; at first some effort to make
| both ends meet. some amaZemeEt to Helena to
| find her husband mortal enough to like his soup
clear and his coffee hot, some revelation to Leon
ard that Helena had a temper of her own: and
| then the patients were a nuisance to her, she
| hated them all-especiallya- the women who
adored and conided in their doctor--but not
| half so much a nuisance the music to
| him. that filled his house with clatter and stole
| his wifa away every Sunday. And in these
| years, too Helena had gone down between the
| gates of death, and her husband bent beside
her in her recovery she realized
how the breath of his life hung upon
/ hers ."They are beautiful he said of his chill
| dren. "they are you. they are me. they their
I own fresh new beings, the spark of whose life
was our love But they are nothing to me De
| side you, my darling" But when they died she
| thought his heart would break She herself felt
| as he had thought he should feel-a tender grief
| perfect love- a trust in the hand that gave
| them and reclaimed them; but Leonard was
| spared and having Leonard she had all And
| there was moreover. certain ecstasy in heI
sorrow. with the thought of what it meant te
have children in heaven. 'sIt is a sacrament.
| she said to Leonard I'VE had them, God haf
them; God and we, and no others enter into it
| 1t is positive and actual breaking of sacrament
| al bread And oh. my darling!" she would
cry throwing her arms about him, ''since have
| you"
But as time went on, and other children
came, she what grief it was to Leonard
| what an increasing grief; how he loved Other
peoples children, and longed for his own. And
| she was content with only him. Yet for any an(
every drawback, what perfect home theirs
had been; what generous hospitality had regnet
within its open doors; how the poor knew it
gates the birds do the branching trees wha
cheerfulness, and sweetness, and gay bright so